


Live to Serve

by Philomytha



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Oaths & Vows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:59:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ImpSec agents and their oaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live to Serve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cordialcount](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordialcount/gifts).



**Negri**

The light blinked on his private comm line, and Negri stared at it. He knew who it was. Who he had been waiting for ever since he heard the news. He'd sworn his life in service and sacrifice, ready to burn up his life in fire for his Emperor's sake, forsaking old loyalties for the new order of a free Barrayar. But now those old loyalties were calling out to him, and instead of burning up his life, he knew he would burn up his oath, and let his Emperor fall. He touched the comm. "My lord Ezar," he said.

* * *

**Drou**

She took oath privately to Ezar before she was permitted near the Princess and her son. Privately because the oath was for men, for real soldiers, but Ezar wanted that security of her before he would entrust those valuable lives to anyone, even a woman. The second oath was later, and even more private, after the third time she prevented Serg going near his wife, when Kareen stared up at her with eyes wide with abated fear and the beginnings of trust, and Drou found herself dropping to her knees before her Princess and lifting up her hands in offering.

* * *

**Illyan**

One man should not have such power. ImpSec was rebuilt, and he sat within. His gaze scanned across three planets and beyond, his hands outstretched could move lives and worlds. A godlike image, but he was no god to command this power, and he knew it even as he used his own godlike memory to strengthen his grip upon it. Because the only thing worse than wielding this power would be to lose it. His lord trusted this power to him, and the strength of that trust and his answering oath would have to be enough to carry him through.

* * *

**Duv**

Studying something and experiencing it were not the same, Duv had rapidly discovered during his first week at the Academy, and the differences only grew more pronounced as he moved through the Barrayaran-military system and found stories from his books come to life around him. When he knelt to make his officer's oath to Gregor the entire history and anthropology of the practice rang through his head, the only thing keeping him from fainting with strain and fear. Then Gregor's hands closed on his and all theory fled from his mind in the presence of reality. He was inside now.

* * *

**Miles**

He had placed his hand between Gregor's twice before. The first had been part of a game of Vorthalia the Bold, cut abruptly short when Grandfather spotted them and launched into an hour of furious lecture about playing make-believe with real oaths, and Miles had never done that again. The second when he'd been confirmed as his father's heir, a real oath before the Council of Counts, but not one that would change anything for years. His officer's oath was different, one he'd earned the right to make through his own skill. And he would never break any of them.


End file.
